Thursday, March 6, 2014

Blindess - Review

Goodreads description--It takes a while to know who you really are. And when you lose your way, sometimes it’s hard to find it again.

Charlie Hudson was on the verge of figuring that out when her dad—the only parent and friend she ever had—died suddenly. She was barely 18, and she was alone. So she went for easy—playing life safe, running away from a home that harbored nothing but bad memories and challenges and loving a man who would take her away from it all forever.

It’s funny how chance takes over when you need it most. And that’s exactly what brought Cody Carmichael into her life. A former motocross super star, Cody was now happy to be living the blue collar life, spending his days finishing up school and his nights under the hood of some classic car, just trying to keep everything his father taught him alive. Cody and Charlie were living parallel lives, until they finally collided. And the moment he smiled at her, Charlie knew he was the one who would change everything. But was she willing to take the risk?

Cody saw through it all. He saw her—all of her. But would letting him in be too much to take? And if Charlie let herself love him—really love him—could he love her back?

I had such high hopes for this book--the cover being the main reason. But also, I loved the tutoring and ex-motocross star concepts. But sadly I was let down. The further I read into this book the more frustrated I got. I was huffing and puffing, and highlighting and making notes. If any of my friends read this one off my kindle, they're going to get a kick out of my notes like "judgmental much?" and "oh boy, shoot me now," etc. At one point Husband goes "Just put it down. You know you don't HAVE to read it, right?" And I got angry and threw a temper tantrum and said "I know I don't HAVE to, but I WANT to. I'm just not happy with what's happening, or the characters, or where this is headed. Or well...anything. But I want to know how it ends."

My frustrations began early on and continued to build. The biggest frustration I had was with the main character: Charlie. The description does give you the warning that Charlie doesn't really know who she is. And boy that couldn't be more true. At a mere Location 45 she goes on this big rant about other people and their motives--basically making extreme assumptions about the motivation behind the behavior of others. That was my first irk. I gritted my teeth, made a "you don't know that" note in my kindle, and kept moving forward.

Next Charlie makes a judgmental comment about her boyfriend Trevor's stay-at-home-mom. Granted, in this instance, Charlie does end up being pretty right on, but still. It kind of felt like a jab at stay-at-home-moms worldwide. She's not just judgmental towards people offering condolences to her for the loss of her father, or stay-at-home-moms, she's also judgmental towards Cody himself and every other female that exists in the world.

Aside from being judgmental, Charlie is jealous, immature, and vindictive. When not receiving enough attention she pouts and throws tantrums. When any other female showed Cody (who happens to not be her boyfriend) any slight attention she retaliates by throwing herself at his stepbrother, Trevor, who is her boyfriend. Not cool.

Charlie expects Cody to behave in a way that she doesn't require of herself, and that's something I can't respect. She wants him to remain single, but she refuses to break things off with Trevor despite essentially feeling numb and dead inside when she's with Trevor. I find it utterly despicable that someone would choose to voluntarily continue a relationship with another person when that's what they feel on the inside. Is being alone so terrible that you risk tying yourself to someone you feel disdain toward and thus condemning them to a loveless relationship by default as well? She pitches fits. She throws tantrums. She lies. She cheats.

I had hoped that maybe this type of behavior would stick to Charlie herself. Maybe she's still trying to find herself as the description says and that's all there is to it. Well...not exactly. As much as I hoped Cody would be above her behavior he pretty much has a couple of moments when he behaves no better. These two hurt each other on purpose. Knowing full well in the moment what they are doing, and yet choosing to let hurt pride and wounded feelings dictate how they behave towards each other. It made mecringe. And groan. And sigh. And want to throw my kindle across the room.

The cheesy factor was also a bit extreme. I admit: I like cheesy. But I have a line, and Blindness crossed it. "In that millisecond, I soak them in, and I feel like I'm home." This is said in response to her first glance into Cody's blue eyes. It's a bit of a stretch for me to believe you can feel at home looking into a complete stranger's eyes for the first time. "I won't admit it to him, but the pain--that seconds ago was killing me--is gone. All I can feel now is the grip of his hands along my arm and the beat of his heart near my shoulder." Again, I like cheese...but this is in response to getting burned from an exhaust pipe on a car. A four-inch wide burn as it is described in the book. And yet miraculously all of that pain is gone? Yeah, I'm buying what you're selling.

So let's talk pacing. What I expected to happen in this book based of the description and the beginning was pretty much done around the 60% mark. There was a lot to remain. And most of that was where the heaviest sighing came into play. The conflict was so beyond cliche that I wanted to pluck my eyeballs out. Without revealing too much detail, Trevor's dad basically tells Charlie that he'll ruin Cody's big dream if she breaks off her relationship with Trevor for Cody. Of course, being the wonderfully benevolent, self-sacrificing, and unselfish person that Charlie is (can you feel the sarcasm radiating off of me?), she'd never let Cody's dream be taken away from him. So she willingly forfeits her relationship with Cody to stay with Trevor. And of course she can't explain this to Cody. Cody thus thinks she's a horrible person and rants and raves and acts out of pain towards her--yada yada yada. Yet when Cody finds out the truth, he essentially turns on Charlie again. I just don't buy any of it. It's too easy. This tactic is overused as a point of conflict, and I seriously contemplated putting this one down for good, despite being around the 75% mark and being so close to finishing.

Now that I've completely turned you off from this book probably, let me say that I do think that Ginger Scott shows promise as an author. Despite writing characters that I despised, conflict that was too easy, and romance that was a little too cheesy, she managed to pull me in. Even though I wanted to put this book down, I was hooked. I had to know what was going to happen. With a little polishing and digging a little deeper into knowing who her characters are and finding conflict that is a little more believable, natural to the events taking place, while not being too easy, I think Ginger Scott has a good career ahead of her. I hope that she will continue to grow as an author.

Blindness was nothing that I was expecting. I couldn't connect to the characters and the conflict had me rolling my eyes, but I found myself hooked nontheless. I can only give Blindness 2 Stars, but I could also look at that cover for days at a time. Have you read Blindness? What did you think? Let me know!

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About Me

I wear my hair up alot - grew up a bit of a tom boy. With one brother and one sister, I played football with the boys as much as barbie dolls with the girls. I love romance and I married my best friend. God has blessed me. And I want to return the favor.

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